About

RickB- Human, Artist, Fool.

Ynys Mon, UK.

The blog is called ten percent because of what Kurt Vonnegut wrote when remembering Susan Sontag - She was asked what she had learned from the Holocaust, and she said that 10 percent of any population is cruel, no matter what, and that 10 percent is merciful, no matter what, and that the remaining 80 percent could be moved in either direction.-

And I'm writing it because I need the therapy and I lust for world domination.

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Apartheid torturer allowed to settle and practice medicine in Canada…finally is brought to book for sex crimes, it reminds me of the joke (I think by Mark Steel) about all those white South Africans fleeing democracy.

Topically it is reminiscent of the Vatican’s practices, I think one of the key aspects of the Vatican’s rationale to covering up and enabling abuse was to privilege priests rights above laity, this is not uncommon, occupying troops lives are privileged above the occupied people’s lives etc. This lack of equality and subsequent lack of accountability & justice enables abuses,rapes, murders and torture wherever it exists. Medicine, especially in the area of mental health, also privileges practitioners above patients, various systems try to mitigate this and provide accountability and are of varying degrees of success (and failure). Clearly in this case there was not just an atrocious failure but a very clear tolerance and support of a vicious bigot, made all the worse because he was a psychiatrist with his own diseased views of the world who had immense power over others who would have been very vulnerable. This is not new to psychiatry and Canadian psychiatry, the funding of human vivisection by the CIA is a matter of record. Levin’s career does make one wonder if a a very arrogant and right wing element that was artificially bolstered by Cold War funding, persists in the Canadian psychiatric establishment (for another example see Keneth Zucker) who view the rights of their patients to be little greater than lab rats when it comes to forcing their conservative vision upon the bodies and minds of patients.

A leading Canadian psychiatrist who kept accusations of gross human rights abuses in apartheid-era South Africa hidden has been charged in Calgary with sexually abusing a male patient and is being investigated over dozens of other allegations.

Dr Aubrey Levin, who in South Africa was known as Dr Shock for his use of electricity to “cure” gay military conscripts, was arrested after a patient secretly filmed the psychiatrist allegedly making sexual advances. Levin, who worked at the University of Calgary’s medical school, has been suspended from practising and is free on bail of C$50,000 (£32,000) on charges of repeatedly indecently assaulting a 36-year-old man.

The police say they are investigating similar claims by nearly 30 other patients. The Alberta justice department is reviewing scores of criminal convictions in which Levin was a prosecution witness.

Levin has worked in Canada for 15 years since leaving South Africa, where he was chief psychiatrist in the apartheid-era military and became notorious for using electric shocks to “cure” gay white conscripts. He also held conscientious objectors against their will at a military hospital because they were “disturbed” and subjected them to powerful drug regimens.

South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission heard that Levin was guilty of “gross human rights abuses” including chemical castration of gay men. But after arriving in Canada in 1995 he managed to suppress public discussion of his past by threatening lawsuits against news organisations that attempted to explore it.

Following the arrest, other male patients have contacted the authorities. One, who was not identified, told CTV in Canada that he had gone to Levin for help with a gambling addiction and alleged he had been questioned about his sex life and subject to sexual advances.

The arrest has raised questions about how Levin was allowed to settle in Canada. Canada admitted other South African medical practitioners accused of human rights abuses, including two who worked with Wouter Basson, known as Dr Death for his oversight of chemical and biological warfare experiments that included the murder of captured Namibian guerrillas.

Levin, who made no secret of his hard rightwing views and was a member of the ruling National party during apartheid, has a long history of homophobia.

In the 1960s, he wrote to a parliamentary committee considering the abolition of laws criminalising homosexuality saying that they should be left in place because he could “cure” gay people.

His efforts to do just that in the army began in 1969 at the infamous ward 22 at the Voortrekkerhoogte military hospital near Pretoria, which ostensibly catered for service personnel with psychological problems. Commanding officers and chaplains were encouraged to refer “deviants” for electroconvulsive aversion therapy.

A good day for Manchester, would have been better if the EDL hadn’t bothered, but nonetheless, I suppose friendless bores & bigots rarely perceive when they are not welcome. Live site at the Manchester Evening News.

I would also add worth reading is this tangled tale that involves the racist senior EDL operator Paul Ray of the lamentable Lionheart blog, apparently forging online identities to create fake terror stories to smear Muslims with and the corporate media go along with it. No really, try to be surprised. This is in addition to the fine work of Tim Ireland @ Bloggerheads. Seems a number of racist fantasists form the backbone of a terror porn creating cabal that help keeps the war on terror bullshit flowing in tabloid land, all with a common trait of rabid Islamophobia. Of course creating incidents to gather support is a very old fascist tactic and that Patrick ‘once fired for racism‘ Mercer MP the Tory Chairman of the Commons sub-committee on counter-terrorism and erstwhile shadow spokes-mannequin for Fatherland ‘Homeland’ security is involved is so far being ignored by that same corporate media.

The Christian right is making a fresh push to force religion onto the school curriculum in Texas with the state’s education board about to consider recommendations that children be taught that there would be no United States if it had not been for God…One of the panel, David Barton, founder of a Christian heritage group called WallBuilders, argues that the curriculum should reflect the fact that the US Constitution was written with God in mind including that “there is a fixed moral law derived from God and nature”, that “there is a creator” and “government exists primarily to protect God-given rights to every individual”.

The Nakba is leaving the education system: Education Minister Gidon Saar decided yesterday to cancel the subject of the Nakba in the Arab sector. The Nakba is the description used by the Palestinians for Israel’s victory in the War of Independence, and literally means “catastrophe. The topic was studied until today as part of the geography subject, after a decision made on the matter during the period of Limor Livnat, and was officially introduced into textbooks during the term of the previous education minister, Yuli Tamir. “There is no reason for the official curriculum of the State of Israel to present the state’s establishment as a Holocaust or catastrophe,” Saar said yesterday.

Common denominator? Ethnic cleansing and/or genocide excused because…God Made Me Do It! Translation- I avoid personal responsibility at the same time as claiming ultimate unquestionable supernatural authority for my actions. It’s the last undiagnosed mass mental disorder left on Earth. It also makes you doubt evolutionary theory, not as a whole, just as applied to Homo sapiens, clearly de-evolving at a rate of knots.

Or does this police warning -due to their failure to protect minorities from their loyalist chums- sound more like a threat?

Northern’s Ireland only assembly member from an ethnic minority said she has been notified of a threat to her life. In the assembly on Monday Alliance MLA Anna Lo said police warned her at the weekend that her home may be attacked. Ms Lo, originally from Hong Kong, has lived in Belfast for over 30 years and represents a constituency in the south of the city. Earlier this month attacks on the Romanian community in the area forced more than 100 people from their homes. Ms Lo said she had received some hate mail in recent weeks and will step up her security following an anonymous call to the PSNI on Saturday. “I’m not going to be deterred by these people,” she said. “If they think that they can stop me from speaking out against them or speaking for the vulnerable people, new ethnic minority communities or migrant workers they are mistaken.”

Hey here’s an idea, pledge to protect her and hunt down the racist terrorists making the threats and do so very publicly and very vigorously, send a message you dig, because the message sent so far is- racists do the terrorising, the police will do the removal services.

BNP leader Nick Griffin made a secret trip to the Belfast base less than two weeks ago to film a propaganda video. Our exclusive picture shows Griffin pictured at the Belfast HQ flanked by two members of staff, whose identity we have protected.

Racists who forced Romanians to flee their homes threatened to cut a baby’s throat, it emerged today. Over 100 men, women and children were this morning taken to the Ozone complex in Belfast after they spent the night in a church hall following sustained attacks by a racist mob claiming to be from the fascist group Combat 18.

Thugs who target migrants in Northern Ireland for racist attack are guilty of ethnic cleansing, a community worker said today. Large parts of south Belfast are in danger of becoming no-go areas after 20 Romanian families were forced to spend the night at a church hall, Patrick Yu added. Bricks have been thrown through windows in the Protestant working-class Village area with increasing frequency in recent weeks.

Now the BNP have two MEP’s I think it is incumbent on the media to ask them directly their views on the attacks and to see if they will condemn them and demand all members and associates cease any activity they may be involved in. Will political journalists on TV have the guts to confront fascism on the air? It should also be asked how the police allowed it to get this bad, given their historic ties to loyalists and their paramilitaries should we deduce they ignored the victimisation of Romanians as those doing it had links to Loyalist groups gangs? Is the bias in British media in favour of Loyalism not allowing the true picture of bigotry to emerge? Many in the community though are far more courageous and if their lead had been followed this refugee crisis could perhaps have been averted, if the hardcore violent fascists had been dealt with by the police-

Their south Belfast homes came under sustained attack from Thursday evening, with their windows smashed and doors kicked in by crowds of thugs gathering outside shouting racist slogans.

A number of local residents last night stood guard outside their new home in a bid to protect them.

One local resident, Paddy Meehan, said: “About 12 of us worked in shifts to defend the house last night. Local residents think these people have to be defended. These thugs have been shouting that they are Combat 18 and they dropped a letter containing text from Hitler’s Mein Kampf through the letterbox of one of the properties.

“This has been going on for several nights. Sometimes there is about 20 of them gathering outside the properties. There is a hardcore of maybe six or seven shouting abuse and kicking doors down.These families are terrified, so are all their young children. They feel very isolated which is why the local community is gathering around them to support them,” he added.

The PSNI said police in south Belfast are investigating a number of racist attacks and criminal damage to properties and a car in Wellesley Avenue and Belgravia Avenue on a number of occasions between June 11 and 14.

A spokeswoman added: “A crowd gathered on each occasion at the properties and a number of windows were smashed. Police have not received reports of any injuries.”

The extent to which the true roots of this racist violence are obscured will determine its spread and increase in severity elsewhere. Because of the soft spot for loyalists in the British establishment there is the danger of it not being dealt with and spreading. Or as Dave Osler puts it-

The Six Counties has always been a case apart from the rest of the United Kingdom, if I can be permitted to use the two geographical expressions in the same sentence. Just because something happens in Belfast, that doesn’t mean that it must necessarily happen in Burnley.

But sadly, it does not take too much of a leap of the imagination to see that if bricks can readily fly through immigrant windows in Belfast, the tactic may yet be duplicated in many English towns. If the bricks are one day followed by firebombs, then yes, we will be talking about pogroms.

Via Chicken Yoghurt. A brilliant graph has been concocted by The Yorkshire Ranter, demonstrating how the idea increased immigration feeds BNP membership increase is a total load of crap, it’s at best an excuse (both conscious and subconsciously) and at worst an outright lie. Fascists will be fascists and convenient rationalisations are just that. It’s like the eternal excuse- I’m sorry I was drunk- when the actual answer is- I have an alcohol problem that exacerbates unrecognised mental distress. Although admittedly not as snappy as ‘Binge Drinking Britain’, the stiff upper lip of denial abides…